Plate No. 081fabric
- First documented
- 1811
- Origin
- Fort Mackinac, Michigan, United States
- Fiber
- wool
- Weave
- dense napped wool, heavy check
- Family
- checks
Plate No. 081 · fabric
Mackinaw
Mackinaw is the cloth of the North American winter: a dense, heavily napped wool, woven thick enough to turn wind and wet snow, classically in bold checks. The story begins in 1811 at the Great Lakes fur posts, where a British captain short of greatcoats had blankets cut into coats for his men; the short double-breasted mackinaw coat kept the name and became the uniform of lumberjacks, hunters, and railroad men. Buffalo check mackinaw is the iconic form, the red and black coat of every logging camp photograph.
Named for
Named for Mackinac (Mackinaw) at the straits of the Great Lakes, where the heavy blanket cloth was traded and first cut into coats.
In the record
- 1811Blankets at the Mackinac trading post were cut into coats for British troops, by tradition the first mackinaws.
Sources & References
- 1.Mackinaw cloth, Wikipedia
- 2.Mackinaw jacket, Wikipedia